Market corrects for third straight day

The market cooled off after gaining in the early session. The Sensex opened at 15287, up 127 points, tracking strong Asian indices. Nifty registered its intra-day high of 15417 on buying in information technology, media and telecommunication stocks. However, the market gave up its gains due to profit booking in heavyweights, auto, fast moving consumer goods and capital goods stocks. As trading progressed the Sensex lost its strength and slipped into negative territory to touch the day's low of 14902. The Sensex pared some losses towards the close but sustained selling in index pivotal stocks kept the index in negative territory. For the day the Sensex was down 150 points at 15010, while Nifty ended 44 points down at 4438.

The broader market remained weak. Of the 2,726 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,800 stocks declined, 850 stocks advanced and 76 stocks ended unchanged. Barring BSE IT index and BSE Teck the other sectoral indices ended in the negative territory. The BSE Auto index dropped 4.52%, the BSE FMCG index shed 2.96% and BSE CG index was down 2.03%.

Among the major losers, Mahindra & Mahindra dropped 9.12% to Rs758.10, ACC slumped 6.52% to Rs809.95, Hero Honda Motors shed 3.80% to Rs1,425, Hindustan Unilever lost 3.48% at Rs260.45, Tata Motors declined 3.27% to Rs400.95 and Maruti Suzuki India slipped nearly 3.09% to trade Rs1,251.40. However, Tata Consultancy Services notched 6.02% to trade at Rs538.85, Wipro rose 2.80% to Rs512.85, Infosys Technologies added 2.20% to Rs2,086.80, Tata Power advanced 2.12% to Rs1,251.30 and ONGC moved up by 1.90% to Rs1,159.70.

Over 2.11 crore shares of Mahindra Satyam changed hands on the BSE followed by Suzlon Energy (1.83 crore shares), Unitech (1.66 crore shares), Firstsource Solutions (1.50 crore shares) and Ispat Industries (1.40 crore shares).